Charles Lyons-Burt 
- Attributes Invictus’ recompete wins and growth to a veteran-founded culture built on loyalty and discipline
- Points to AI, CMMC 2.0 and rapid acquisition vehicles as forces reshaping his growth strategy
- Names Chinese cyber pre-positioning and the homeland missile threat as top national security concerns
Sean Papso has spent the better part of a decade helping scale Invictus into a multibillion-dollar prime contractor, work that culminated in Red River‘s December 2025 acquisition of the company, a deal he helped lead as chief operating officer through diligence and close. As president and chief growth officer of Invictus, a Red River Company, he now carries that same growth discipline across the broader enterprise.
A former naval aviation officer and Naval Academy graduate, Papso built his GovCon career across stops at Computer Sciences Corp., Lockheed Martin and Leidos before joining Invictus in 2018. In this Executive Spotlight interview, he discusses the veteran-founded culture behind Invictus’ growth, the industry forces reshaping the GovCon landscape, and the national security threats he considers most pressing today. He also shares lessons from his time in uniform and advice for GovCon professionals aiming for the C-suite.
ExecutiveBiz: What are Invictus’ core values and how do they translate into continued success and growth in GovCon?
Sean Papso: Our values are simple to state and deep-rooted in each of us: loyalty, service and devotion to duty, our people, and discipline.
Invictus was founded by veterans, and nearly seven in ten of our Spartans have worn the uniform. For us, loyalty to the mission and to each other is not a poster on the wall but rather how we were raised. In the intelligence and defense market, that culture is also a competitive advantage. The work we do is hard, often classified and unforgiving of mistakes, which is why discipline (in execution, in compliance and in preparation) is what keeps us on contract and earns us the next one.
Service and devotion to duty translate directly into the customer trust and superior performance that drive recompete win rates and organic growth. And because cleared, mission-ready talent is the scarcest resource in this industry, our investment in people, through development, continuing education, certifications, and real career mobility, is what lets us scale without diluting quality.
EBiz: Can you discuss some factors and industry trends influencing your growth strategy as you look toward Invictus’ future?
Papso: A few forces are shaping how we think about the future. First, the budget environment is favorable for what we do, with defense, intelligence and homeland security spending rising even as the number of prime opportunities consolidates, which puts a premium on differentiated capability over breadth.
Second, artificial intelligence has moved from a buzzword to a mission requirement; it is now pervasive across analysis, autonomy, predictive maintenance and cyber defense, and our customers expect us to deliver it at mission speed.
Third, the bar on security and supply chain keeps rising, with CMMC 2.0 now a prerequisite to compete on much of the DOW work and a clear push toward trusted, domestic sourcing. (Editor’s note: this interview was conducted prior to the DOW freezing CMMC Phase II for the time being on July 13.) Against that backdrop, our strategy is to double down on our core competencies as a trusted partner capable of supporting worldwide operations, rather than trying to be all things to all customers.
Becoming part of Red River gives us the scale, infrastructure, and balance sheet to pursue larger integrated programs while preserving the agility that made Invictus successful, and my charge now is to carry that growth discipline across the broader enterprise. We are also leaning into rapid acquisition vehicles like other transaction authorities, which reward prototyping and speed to meet mission critical requirements.
EBiz: What was the biggest lesson gleaned from your time in government, and what advice do you have for those entering or transitioning to public service?
Papso: The biggest lesson came early during my time in the Navy: in service, the consequences of your decisions are carried by other people, often people you will never meet. That reframes everything. It teaches you that preparation is a form of respect, that standards exist to protect the team and that leadership is about being trustworthy under pressure rather than being the smartest person in the room. I carry that into industry every day, because the customer’s mission is real and the men and women downrange depend on what we deliver.
My advice to anyone considering public service is to go in for the mission, not the title. Learn a hard skill and become genuinely excellent at it, because credibility in this community is earned through competence. Protect your integrity and your clearance as if your career depends on them, because it does. And if you eventually transition to industry, as many of us do, do not leave the service ethos behind. The people who thrive are the ones who still see themselves as serving the mission, just from a different seat.
EBiz: What’s your advice for those pursuing executive-level positions in GovCon and looking to accelerate their professional growth?
Papso: Three things accelerated my own path, and I would offer them to anyone aiming for the C-suite in this industry. First, get close to the money and the customer at the same time. Learn how to own a profit and loss, how capture and pricing actually work, and how your customer defines mission success, because leaders who understand both the business and the mission are rare and disproportionately valuable.
Second, build range. I have lived in business development, in operations and on the deal side, and the executives who scale companies are the ones who can connect a technical win theme, a financial model and a well-thought-out delivery plan. Investing in financial fluency, whether through formal programs or hard reps on real deals, pays for itself many times over.
Third, build a voice. Write, speak and engage on the issues that matter to your customers; thought leadership compounds, it sharpens your own thinking, and it puts you in the rooms where opportunities begin. Above all, surround yourself with people better than you and give them room to run. Growth is a team sport, and the best executives are talent magnets, not bottlenecks.
EBiz: Please identify the most pressing national security threats today, and how your organization is addressing them.
Papso: We are in the most complex threat environment of my lifetime. This year’s Annual Threat Assessment is clear that China is our most capable strategic competitor, advancing across the military, cyber, space and AI domains at the same time with a stated goal of displacing the U.S. as the world’s leading AI power by 2030.
What keeps practitioners up at night is the cyber pre-positioning; actors such as Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon have embedded themselves in critical infrastructure in ways that go well beyond traditional espionage. At the same time, AI and quantum computing are emerging as force multipliers for our adversaries, and the missile threat to the homeland is growing fast enough that the nation is standing up a layered defense to keep pace with hypersonic, ballistic and advanced cruise missiles.
I wrote about exactly this challenge in a recent piece on securing the Golden Dome, where my argument was that the harder problem is often not the interceptors themselves but the supply-chain resilience and command-and-control infrastructure that have to hold a layered defense together under stress. No single company solves all of that, and I would be skeptical of anyone who claimed to. What Invictus does is focus where we can have outsized impact: cyber operations and engineering, applied cyber research and development, threat analysis, and the warfighter-centric integration and testing that makes those capabilities work together and operate worldwide. The common thread is helping our customers move at the speed of the threat, which is exactly the problem we as a nation are wrestling with.
Who Is Sean Papso?
Sean Papso is president and chief growth officer of Invictus, a Red River Company, where he holds full profit-and-loss responsibility and sets growth strategy for government services across the combined enterprise. He joined Invictus in 2018 and rose through vice president, executive vice president and chief operating officer roles before leading the company’s December 2025 acquisition by Red River, having grown Invictus fivefold over seven years without institutional capital.
Earlier in his career, Papso led captures at Leidos, Lockheed Martin and CSC, and he began in the U.S. Navy as a naval aviation officer. He is a 2025 AFCEA International 40 Under 40 honoree, writes and speaks on space, cyber and the defense industrial base, and serves on multiple boards and councils focused on national security and federal technology. Papso holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, an MBA from Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and is an alumnus of the Advanced Finance Program at the Wharton School.
What Is Invictus?
Invictus International Consulting is a national security services provider now operating as Red River’s government services business unit following Red River’s December 2025 acquisition of the company. Founded by veterans, nearly seven in 10 of the company’s employees have served in uniform. Invictus focuses on cyber operations and engineering, applied cyber research and development, threat analysis and warfighter-centric integration and testing for defense, intelligence and homeland security customers worldwide.
